


It Feels More Like A Memory

by RosaFloribunda



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 19:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10837659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosaFloribunda/pseuds/RosaFloribunda
Summary: Alexander Hammond is ready for his first cabinet meeting as Treasury Secretary. But what will happen when he realises the Secretary of State is a reincarnation of his lover in a previous life - in the middle of his speech?





	It Feels More Like A Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LoopyLouisaCopeland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoopyLouisaCopeland/gifts).



> I received this prompt from the wonderful LoopyLouisaCopeland: "Jamilton reincarnation au with them working in their old positions and realising during a cabinet meeting". Hope she and everyone else who reads enjoys this!

 

"Fuck my life," said Alexander Hammond to himself with a tiny groan.

 

He was very lucky no one could hear him, because it wasn't very good publicity for the US Secretary of the Treasury to be using such language. And the room was absolutely full of cameras. NBC, ABC, Fox News, international reporters - they were all there. Shouting questions at Alex and the Press Secretary, Peggy Schubert, while the latter stood in front of a lectern and tried to continue with her speech.

 

"President Washburn would like to dispel the rumours that he will be appointing my si - Dr. Angelica Schubert as Secretary of State," Peggy squeaked nervously over the shouts.

 

"Ms Schubert! Are you and Mr. Hammond in a relationship?"

 

"What -"

 

"Mr. Hammond, is it true that you're the president's illegitimate son?"

 

Alex adjusted his tie very calmly and did not respond, although inside he was squirming at all the attention. Still, if he'd wanted a quiet life he wouldn't have gone into politics. He couldn't help but think of the good times he'd had overseeing a small divorce law business in New York... but those times were behind him now, and he was here in D.C. mere hours away from his first cabinet meeting. He had to stay calm and focus on the facts. It wouldn't do to lose his temper before he'd even so much as proposed his new debt plan, would it?

 

"I think the one thing that we would all like to know is who _will_ be the State Secretary," said a very large man representing Denver Radio in a very loud voice.

 

Peggy blinked, thrown even more off-balance than she had been already. "Um, I have to say, I don't know. Sorry. But the President will be addressing the nation before the meeting later today and I'm sure he will be able to impart that information. Thank you, everybody."

 

As she trailed off the stage, hands twisting nervously in her jacket pockets, there was another storm of questions; but this time they were directed at Alex. He sighed, swore quietly one last time, and stepped up to the lectern with an ingratiating smile.

 

Just two more hours until the cabinet meeting, when he'd finally get to see this elusive Secretary (and hopefully drive him into the ground with the mere force of his own argumentative powers).

 

Just two more hours.

 

* * *

 

Alex walked down the corridor, looking around him at the rich decorations and hundreds of artworks that lined the walls. From portraits of former presidents - Lincoln, Roosevelt, Obama - to beautiful old landscapes that were more like photographs than paintings. He felt a very familiar wave of embarrassment. Even in his designer suit, green (the colour of money, the tailor had said; Hercules Mulrooney, one of his old army friends, who knew him better than anyone) and far too fancy for his tastes, he felt inadequate among all this luxury.

 

Then he shook his head and continued to walk, faster now. If people still saw him as the bastard, orphan, immigrant, whoreson that they had called him to his face up until very recently, then he'd just have to make a bigger name for himself, one that overshadowed anything else he might happen to be.

 

He met George Washburn at the door to the latter's office (the Oval Office! Neither of them could really believe it) and walked with him in comfortable silence to the door of the cabinet room. Once there, though, the President turned to his secretary and put a hand on the smaller man's shoulder.

 

"Son -"

 

"Sir," said Alex with an apologetic smile, "don't you think we'd better keep it professional? There are enough rumours about my parentage to start with."

 

Washburn withdrew his hand with a slight nod. "Er, of course. Hammond. You're right. It's merely that I wanted to warn you that the State Sec. might not be quite what you expect."

 

"Sir?" Alex questioned, suddenly uneasy. Who had the President appointed this time? He really didn't like to think. After all, the man had chosen John Adderley as his running mate. That didn't exactly speak wonders for his taste.

 

"He has some fairly controversial opinions about foreign relations and the national debt, and he will not hesitate to make those known. I don't want you starting a brawl, do you hear me?"

 

Alex gulped. Washburn's dark eyes were staring into his own with an intensity that unnerved the younger man. "I won't, sir, I promise," he managed eventually. "I'm very calm. See?" And he took several exaggeratedly deep breaths.

 

Washburn beamed at him. "Good man."

 

And the President led the way into the cabinet room.

 

Inside it was far larger than it had appeared to be from the pictures Alex had seen. Lamps that probably cost a year's worth of his lawyer's salary hung from the high, domed ceiling, and the windows were half-covered with red velvet curtains that Alex privately thought were just tacky. Perhaps twenty cabinet members had arranged themselves in no particular order around a huge wooden table, some chatting politely, some mumbling over their notes, some silent. Waiting.

 

As Washburn came in they all stood up. Alex half-expected them to chorus like schoolchildren, "GOOD MORNING, MR. WASHBURN." They didn't quite do that, but the respectful way they viewed him made it quite clear that if that was what was demanded of them they would do it without a second thought.

 

The only people he recognised around the table were Peggy, Maria Reginald and James Mallinson; the first of these was tapping her pile of papers nervously, the second crossing her arms over her chest in a gesture that could have meant either belligerence or shyness, and the third, as usual, coughing into a large white handkerchief. It was a shame he and James were on opposite sides of the political spectrum now, thought Alex. They might have made quite a formidable team.

 

As it was, a moment after he and Washburn sat down, the rest of the table took their seats.

 

"It seems," said the President mildly, "that our Secretary of State is not present. Does anyone know for what reason this might be?"

 

James opened his mouth to answer, but just started coughing again. A woman with very short blonde hair thumped him on the back sympathetically. But before he regained enough breath to answer, the door flew open and a Southern-accented voice asked the room, "What'd I miss?"

 

Alex turned around and received the shock of his life. A man was striding in who was excruciatingly familiar. Not in face as such, but in demeanour, in the way he walked and (even though he'd only said three words so far) the way he talked. He was tall and lean, with dark skin and hair, and wore gold-rimmed glasses that clashed horribly with his yellow jacket, which in turn didn't exactly compliment his purple trousers - but somehow Alex managed to look past the awful glasses and into his eyes. Two thoughts immediately hit him: _I've never seen eyes like that in my life_ and _I know those eyes, I'd know them anywhere._

 

Washburn waved the man into his seat, at the right end of the table next to (really diagonal from) both himself and Alex and told the room, "This is Thomas Jeffcott, who will be running the State department; you may know him as the former ambassador to France."

 

The man acknowledged this introduction with a supercilious nod. Alex suddenly became aware that he was gaping and snapped his mouth shut. He had a job to do. He was going to get this debt plan through and he was going to do it despite the distraction of this Jeffcott guy.

 

After the proper introductions, he stood up and began his speech. It was a good speech, one of his better ones; he'd spent many hours editing it down from forty thousand words to a mere two thousand, five hundred so that he could fit it into the twenty minutes that Washburn customarily limited him to. He'd even asked Angelica Schubert's help with the mathematical side of things, something that he was normally too proud to do. Yes, it was a good speech. Everyone applauded at the end of it. Except one.

 

Thomas Jeffcott.

 

The bespectacled secretary stood up almost in the same second Alex sat down. By the way he was grinning Alex could tell he'd found an awful flaw in the speech, and his heart sunk. Even James was looking faintly amused, the traitorous dickhead.

 

"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," began Jeffcott, his gaze sweeping the room. "We fought for these ideals, we shouldn't settle for less -"

 

"Awesome, wow," said Alex snidely from his seat. "That was a real nice declaration. Did you forget that we're not in the seventeen-hundreds anymore -"

 

Then both men abruptly stopped. But it wasn't because of George Washburn's pointed glare directed towards Alex, or James Mallison's sudden wheezing fit. They weren't looking at either of those men or at the interested cabinet. They were looking at each other.

 

_Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness._

 

_That was a real nice declaration._

 

_"We ought to consider Mr. Hamilton's reason for laying this plan before us, gentlemen. After all, it is his seat of government that will benefit from this outrageous demand."_

 

_"If we assume state debts, the Union gets a new line of credit, a financial boost, if you will. How do you not understand me, Mr. Jefferson? We must be aggressive and competitive to compete with foreign markets."_

 

_The familiar weight of a violin laid across his arm. The suffocating high collar of his new linen shirt. The shouts and bustle of the city outside the cabinet room which would never be there if they could only move the capital to the Potomac. Hamilton's endearingly excited voice detailing another hundred-page plan of his._

 

_The irritating feeling of his wig slipping a little but not being able to adjust it in polite company. The heaviness of his frock coat on a hot, hot New York day. The well-known feeling of a sharp new quill in his hand. Jefferson's bright blue eyes staring at him, hawklike._

 

"Hamilton," said Thomas, and his voice didn't sound like his any more. It was quieter, more cultured.

 

"Jefferson," said Alex, who had somehow regained the West Indian accent he had spent years learning how to lose.

 

"Excuse me?" asked Washburn, totally lost. His Secretaries of Treasury and State were just standing there, gazing into each others' eyes like long-lost lovers. _Very_ long-lost lovers. But... they had never met before, right?

 

And then they kissed and, well, that idea was obviously wrong. James Mallinson made a noise of disgust, Peggy Schubert let out an audible 'aw', and Maria Reginald rolled her eyes for what had to be the twelfth time that day. But, once again, Alex and Thomas paid no notice. They were holding each other and talking now, quietly.

 

"You can rest assured I dragged that weasel Burr's name through the mud after what he did to you," Thomas was murmuring.

 

Alex had tears in his eyes. "My Thomas," he said chokedly. "I'm so sorry for leaving you."

 

"You had your honour to think of, and what kind of a lover would I have been if I stood in the way of that? But we are together now, Alexander, and know well that this time I shall not make the stupid mistakes of my previous life."

 

"And nor shall I," Alex sniffed, clutching onto that terrible yellow blazer as if he would never let go. "I love you, Thomas."

 

"I lo -"

 

"Get a room!" snapped James from where he sat, head in hands, and the cabinet laughed.

 

It took only another five seconds for a still very confused George Washburn to dismiss everyone. It took even less time for him to decide not to pry into Hammond and Jeffcott - Hamilton and Jefferson - Alexander and Thomas' private affairs. As long as they stayed in love and didn't go through a bitter breakup or anything, it might be nice for the cabinet to have its two most polar opposite members on such good terms with each other. He would have to have a talk with Alex later, though, just to use the man's own words and warn him against public displays of affection in the workplace environment. Keep it professional, he'd say. Ha. Revenge was sweet.

 

As for Alex and Thomas, as soon as Washburn left the room, they sat down together and promised once more never to leave each other again.

 

That was a promise they kept for the rest of their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment, they give me L I F E
> 
> PS. if you like this and want to see badly drawn illustrations, why not follow me on tumblr? My url is shoddyhamiltonsketches. Thanks in advance! :)


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